New! MPG Pro One™ (pro-grade iMac)

Saturday, July 31, 2010

In all my earlier comments, I’ve remarked on the limitations of the iMac as compared to a Mac Pro.

But one can’t get around the fact that the iMac appeals to many, and not just for cost reasons (eg the built-in 27" screen), but also the appealing form factor. With its new quad-core processor at 2.93GHz, it has plenty of CPU punch, so how to exploit that?

Well, the folks over at OWC have figured out some great ways to upgrade the new iMac, opening up new options for turning the iMac into a machine with serious grunt.

Not all limitations can be addressed, but the gap between the iMac and the Mac Pro can be closed considerably, hence the new MPG Pro One™, an all-in-one pro-grade solution for photographers and other imaging professionals. OWC builds and tests the MPG Pro One to MPG specifications.

You can order one of these systems starting August 3rd, or contact us if you’d like to me notified. If a full MPG Pro One is not for you, OWC still has other great upgrade available.

This prof configuration reads and writes in the 500MB/sec range (a standard hard drive is in the 115MB/sec range, and slows down as it fills up). The SSD volume does not slow down as it fills up— it starts fast and stays fast. Benefits:

Ultra-fast Photoshop scratch;

Ultra-fast Lightroom catalog and preview and caches;

Ultra-fast application launch;

Ultra-fast virtual memory;

Drive speed just “goes away” as an issue. You won’t believe it until you experience it.

MPG Pro One — memory

Choose 16GB (recommended), or downsize to 12GB.

MPG Pro One — 3rd drive

You can choose to leave the internal optical drive unchanged as shipped from Apple. Or it can be removed and an external optical drive used instead, which allows one (1) of these three options: